


Drive

by distractionpie



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-25 14:20:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3813706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bard has been chauffeuring Thranduil, owner of Greenwood enterprises, for several years now and has grown closer to him that any previous client. Working with somebody so compelling is definitely starting to put a strain of Bard’s abilities to maintain professional boundaries. But Thranduil's life is not all that it appears, and his secrets are the sort of dangerous that will force Bard to either walk away or become embroiled in a conspiracy that will change his life forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drive

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, for reasons of not wanting to spoil certain plotpoints I've chosen not to tag warnings; however they are available in the end notes for those who might want them.
> 
> I'd like to thank my beta. Also tumblr users barddragonslayer and thrandythefabulous who were amazingly helpful in letting me talk out my ideas with them and hashing out certain plot points! :)
> 
> Don't forget to check out spanglesandsass' stunning art over at: http://spanglesandsass.tumblr.com/post/117375228014/bard-slides-his-hands-up-and-grips-thranduils
> 
> I will hopefully retitle this at some point, but given that the mods have already kindly let me post after my assigned date due to tech problems, I'll fix that later rather that delaying posting.

“We don’t want any more complaints now, do we? And one of our customers mentioned seeing a car in our service lot with mud on its bumper - it’s your responsibility to keep the car clean, a poor looking car is a poor looking company, and people who make us look bad don’t stay employed for long.”

This, Bard reflects, is very much a typical one-sided conversation with Griffith Idwal, referred to as the Master by most of his frustrated employees. Once, Percy had slipped up and used it where Griffith could hear, but the man hadn’t seemed to realise Percy was being sarcastic, instead encouraging his staff to use the nickname, even in front of clients. Bard avoided referring to him as anything other than Mr Idwal though, not wanting to encourage the man’s delusions of grandeur. This is possibly one of the reasons the man disliked him so much.

Bard sighs as he slips his phone back into the inside pocket of his polyester suit jacket, it’s often silenced and he likes to keep it close enough to his body that he’ll be able to feel it vibrate. Idwal would never seriously consider pulling him off the job for anything but a truly unforgivable offence. Thranduil Oropherion is too much of a valued and high paying customer to tolerate his service being disrupted, but that isn’t going to stop Bard’s boss from threatening to have him fired and blackballed in the city. He seemed constantly determined to remind Bard that he couldn’t simply quit and start his own company at a whim, although his constant harassment was the one thing that tempted Bard towards leaving. Not that he would ever really go, a risky freelance situation might be fun, but the security of steady work, even under the most tyrannical of employers, won out.

He hears the sound of a door open, and looks back to where his client is slipping elegantly into the back seat, which had been modified to more comfortably accommodate his height.

“Thranduil,” he acknowledges, jolted out of his train of thought. Thranduil always seemed to sneak up on him like that. Technically as part of his job, Bard is supposed to get out and open the door for Thranduil, but the man complained that such practises were inefficient and unnecessary and didn’t insist on them. He preferred to slip into the car as unnoticeably as he could. At the beginning, Thranduil had actually managed to get completely into the car before Bard noticed him, but since then he’d gotten used to being on watch for Thranduil’s presence. Anyway, that kind of awareness is something he ought to have anyway, in order to avoid vandals or car thieves, although he’d never encountered anyone in either of those occupations as good at slipping in and out of places as Thranduil.

Sometimes it seems like half his job is keeping people from keying the car while he waits. Something about a customised Tesla Model S seems to draw people’s ire, possibly the way that it seems to ooze money. Normally when he’s driving professionally Bard’s car is provided by the company he works for, Esgaroth Driving, but Thranduil had insisted on providing his own car, declaring that none of the luxury Esgaroth offered met his standards. Bard had been prepared to dislike the man solely for that, until the first time he’d met the man and been scolded sharply for throwing a coffee cup in the bin, instead of recycling it.

After that, he’d looked into Thranduil and Greenwood Enterprises, and pages upon pages of data about sustainable trading and carbon neutrality had explained a lot about why even the fanciest of petrol cars hadn’t been good enough to Thranduil.

Even if driving and electric car had been exceedingly weird for Bard at first.

It hadn’t taken long for him to grow accustomed to working for Thranduil. The hours were more intense that many of his previous clients, he was assumed to be on call unless Thranduil specifically told him otherwise, and his evenings and weekends were rarely his own. But unlike his previous clients, Thranduil also seemed aware that Bard was a human being not just some automaton there to serve him which was a pleasant change.

He lifts a soy latte from the tray resting on the front passenger seat and passes it back to Thranduil. Technically Greenwood Enterprises has couriers and P.As to do that sort of thing, but Thranduil always seems annoyed when he has to deal with more of his staff than essential so Bard had found himself taking over certain tasks, regardless of whether they were in his job description. No doubt Idwal would berate him if he found out, but his boss would probably berate him for not being accommodating if he didn’t do it so there was no winning, and it all went back to Thranduil’s Greenwood expenses account anyway.

Bard had been driving Thranduil for three years now, and he dreaded the day that he was reassigned. Thranduil was demanding and a workaholic, but he was also the most agreeable client Bard had ever worked with.

 

*

 

If he were off the clock, he’d be cursing at the idiot in the pickup truck that just cut them up, but although he’s heard Thranduil curse once or twice, he knows it would be well outside the required level of professionalism.

Thranduil has been called to an urgent meeting. A client of Greenwood’s who will be leaving the country at the weekend and insists on having their deal finalised before they leave. They’d agreed upon three, and it is two forty-five now, and they’re still at least twenty minutes away. A glance in the rear view mirror shows a crease in Thranduil’s brow and the slight downturn of his lips – clear signs he’s as frustrated as Bard is with these delays.

“How urgently do you want to get there?” Bard asks.

Thranduil makes a tiny sound of annoyance, which sends a flash of amusement through Bard despite his irritation, and says, “As fast as possible. To arrive late will appear poor form indeed.”

Bard nods, takes a slow breath while he waits for the opportune moment, and yanks the wheel to the right. Even expecting it, he finds the experience uncomfortable, and a glace back shows Thranduil looking like nothing so much as a startled cat. It’s brought them forward though.

“Esgaroth offers its clientele a smooth and comfortable travel experience,” Bard remarks, raising one catching Thranduil’s eye in the rear-view and raising an eyebrow, “But if you’re willing to forego that I can get us there faster.”

Thranduil nods, and it reinforces Bard’s respect for the man that he is willing to put keeping his obligations above personal comfort and style. Mostly though, Bard is delighted, as he always is, to have the opportunity to give someone a glimpse of what he can really do.

Maybe someday Thranduil will be called out of the city and Bard will get a chance to show off properly, but for now…

They arrive with five minutes to spare.

 

*

 

"You seem..." Bard has long discarded most of the rules he's been taught regarding client interaction, but he wonders if what he's about to say crosses the line from impertinent-for-a-hireling into actually just rude, "more stressed than usual."

Stressed enough that there are creases in the elegant linen of his dove grey suit, when Bard has always assumed that clothes as expensive as Thranduil’s were incapable of looking rumpled, and he’d definitely been drinking more coffee than usual. There's a moment where Thranduil looks thunderous and all Bard can think is, oh fuck, but then Thranduil's face clears and he nods.

"Iaethor's people are also in talks with Annomben's. They are attempting to have us to compete over their custom and barter down our prices accordingly, not that they have any intention of paying with anything but credit anyway," Thranduil explained.

The glimpses that working for Thranduil had given Bard into business over the years explained some of that but, "Surely if you know they're going to double-cross you, you should just decline the contract?"

Thranduil shakes his head. “Business can cutthroat, especially the sort of business I engage in. I would expect nothing less than backstabbing from many of the people I deal with.”

Bard nods, reminded once again of how different his and Thranduil's worlds are, despite the fact they often occupy the same space. He couldn’t imagine having to deal with that all day, everything. Tolerating rude customers and his boss’ snide remarks is bad enough, but at least people were rarely out to deliberately sabotage him – although one of the part time drivers, Alfrid, had deliberately slashed one of his tires once. He's always found the wage gap between those at the highest and lowest ends of a company absurd, never understood how somebody who does nothing but tell other people what work to do could justify so much pay. He still thinks that, but his years with Thranduil have made him realise that leadership is its own challenge, and that delegation can be real work. That won't stop him resenting his own boss though, whose greed and laziness keep Bard from ever forgetting that Thranduil's work ethic is the exception not the rule.

 

*

 

Unlike many of his previous clients, Thranduil allows Bard his freedom while the man is in meetings, insisting that waiting in car parks is a pointless use of Bard's time. As long as Bard is waiting at the time when Thranduil expected to leave a meeting, and responded promptly to Thranduil's calls, Bard's time when Thranduil didn't need him is his own. He still spent a great deal of time waiting in car parks, but now he had options, including tipping his seat back and taking a nap.

He wakes slowly, a faint ache in his back from laying halfway upright, and rubs at his eyes. It’s grown dark outside, and he realises that the meeting should have ended some time ago, so he checks at his phone for any messages from Thranduil, but his inbox is empty. Once he’s adjusted to his phone screen and the amber glow of the streetlights, he reaches up to turn the car’s interior light on. As he does so, his gaze falls upon the rear-view mirror and he startled, jerking fully upright. “Thranduil,” he gasps out, hastily reaching for the lever to bring his seat back into an upright position. “I- you… I’m sorry.”

Thranduil looks up from his tablet, gaze impassive. “Whatever for?”

Bard frowns, wondering why Thranduil seemed to want him to point out the obvious. “I… sleeping. Your meeting is supposed to end at four, and it’s nearly half past five.”

“Yes,” Thranduil acknowledges, “But it overran. And then I is delayed speaking with Erthriel about the developments with the union.”

Bard nods, relieved. “Will they strike?” he asks.

“Not at present,” Thranduil replies. “While things are not as they want, they also have little sympathy from the public. Though there are rumours of a change in leadership.”

“You have nothing else on your schedule,” Bard observes. “Home?”

Thranduil nods, turning his attention back to the device in front of him.

Bard beings driving, but he can’t help but wonder… the car had been warm when he’d awoke, not infused with a night breeze as it would have been if Thranduil had opened the door only moments before to wake him. Talking with Erthriel couldn’t have taken long and it is a poorly run meeting that overran by more than an hour. Just how long had Thranduil allowed himself to be kept waiting while Bard slept on the job? Better yet, why?

 

*

 

Bard is far too professional to answer the phone while driving normally, but when it rang for the third time in five minutes he was alarmed enough to ask Thranduil if the man wouldn't mind him pulling over and finding out what was going on. Thranduil was clearly as aware as Bard was that this situation was out of the ordinary, Bard could go weeks without getting a single call at work, people knew he drove for a living and tended to text of wait for him to call them.

When he calls back and gets the reception of Dale Preparatory School his heart flips.

He listens to the situation, stomach churning, and then turns to Thranduil.

“I’m going to have to call in a replacement driver.” Thranduil raises his eyebrows. “My younger daughter is sick, she needs to come home, and her grandparents are out of town until late this afternoon, there isn’t anybody else. You’ll have a replacement driver for the afternoon, and her grandparents should be back in time for me to collect you from your dinner meeting.”

“I can keep a replacement driver through the evening, instead of you leaving your daughter with relatives while she is sick. And if a replacement is needed tomorrow then,” Thranduil pauses, apparently catching Bard’s wince. “Is there a problem?”

Bard shakes his head. “No, it’s just… if I call in a replacement driver then I’m off the clock and I don’t… I should definitely be back by tomorrow.”

Thranduil looks sharply at him. “You don’t get paid,” the man concludes, too clever by far. No doubt he’s very aware of Bard’s strained financial situation as well. “There is no need for a replacement driver at all. You will remain on shift all day, of course, but I plan to enjoy walking between my afternoon and evening meetings, it’s such a lovely day.”

Bard glances dubiously out of the window, where clouds were gathering low in the sky. Still, he understands what Thranduil is offering.

“Thank you,” he says, “I’ll get you to Caulderdale’s offices and then-,”

“No need,” Thranduil says. “Caulderdale offered me use of his own service as and when I wished it. He seems to believe grovelling with raise Greenwood’s opinion of his company. I should like to test his offer, just pull over here; I have already sent an email to his people.”

 

*

 

It had been a long night, and Bard’s sleep had been disturbed greatly by getting up every few hours to check on Tilda, but he’d gulped down an extra coffee and pulled up outside Thranduil’s door dead on time. Normally he liked to arrive at least first minutes early, but he really didn’t have the time to spare that morning.

They’d gone through their usual morning routine of greetings, coffee and confirming Thranduil’s predicted itinerary for the day and Bard was just pulling onto the highway when Thranduil broke from convention with an unexpected question.

“And your child? Is she well?”

Bard supposes it isn’t really that surprising that Thranduil is asking, after all he had abandoned the man in the middle of the day to go and collect her.

“Tilda? She will be. She’s staying home from school today, but she’s doing a lot better. It seems to just be one of those forty-eight hour stomach bugs, apparently there’s one going around at the school.”

“You says she’s staying at home, and yet you’re working. You mentioned grandparents; do they offer you a lot of support with the children?”

Bard frowns. He’d been working with Thranduil for a long time now and definitely isn’t entirely professional with man, but this is pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable to share with a customer. “After Ceinwen, my wife, passed… it was a fire, we lost the house and most of our belongings, and the insurance company wouldn’t pay… I was working long hours and staying in a motel. We were all in shock, and there was the funeral expenses and the mortgage still needed paying… Ceinwen’s parents requested custody and… it was for the best. They live out in the suburbs to the north of the city, the house has a yard and they go to good schools…”

Bard trails off. For a moment, Thranduil continues to watch him with an alarming intensity, but then he blinks and the moment is lost.

“I see them fairly regularly, and I give their grandparents money towards supporting them of course,” Bard explains.

“They get more stability like this, they’re happier than they were before.”

Thranduil nods once, and turns his attention to his tablet and Bard quietly sighs his relief at having that conversation be over. That, he thinks, might have crossed lines. He wondered if Thranduil could hear the grief that still curled around those memories, and the loneliness. He wonders if Thranduil understands.

Although he knows that Thranduil prefers to be chauffeured for both professional and personal matters, he rarely saw the man with company. It is possible that Thranduil had whoever he is involved arrange matters of transport, but Bard rather suspect that the man had simply been single all this time. Bard isn’t sure why, not with the man’s looks and wealth, and surely if people knew of his wry humour and frankness of manner they must be flocking to him. He’d had a wife, though that is many years ago, but grief worked to its own clock. Bard thinks it must be lonely, with no partner and his son having left home, and most of his time spent on business. Then again, who is he to judge?

 

*

 

The traffic is crawling and this is the sort of driving that Bard hates. No amount of skilful manoeuvring is of use when the cars are bumper to bumper. They might as well be parked. He has the radio tuned to traffic alerts and knows all of his back alley shortcuts are no use, there's been a pile up on the parkway, blocking it north and south, and the traffic has consumed every road in the city.

It makes him feel jittery and frustrated. Bard has driven for eighteen hours straight before and not been bothered at all, most of the time driving relaxes him, his control over the vehicle is easy and even when he’s following orders it gives him a sense of freedom. Stationary traffic ruins everything he loves about driving, and when he’s on the job leaves him feeling irrationally like he’d failing, although he knows that Thranduil is far too sensible to blame him for the traffic. He can’t help but scan the road for ways out of this jam, even though he knows he won’t find any.

"Pull over," Thranduil announces, causing Bard to jump in his seat. In an instant, he’s scoping out his options. If he parks on the street and worsens the blockage someone is going to bump the car either by accident or in annoyance, but there's an office building a few yards ahead that's home to one of Greenwood enterprises' main contractor. Experience has taught him the security guards of companies that work closely with Greenwood are generally inclined to let a lot slide once they realise he works directly with Thranduil.

It's not until he's spoken with the guard (whose reaction to spotting Thranduil is to go wide-eyed and treat Bard with comical deference) that he wonders why they're stopping. Thranduil had nothing else on schedule today; he'd been driving the man home.

Thranduil slips out of the car and Bard remains seated a beat too long before realising that the man waits for him to follow. Bard's routine involves a spending a lot of time in the car with Thranduil but very little out of it and he can't resist the temptation to ask what they are doing.

"It is foolish to remain in traffic when we make such little progress. It is predicted that it will be some time before the traffic ceases to be stationary, it grows late."

"A fair point," Bard acknowledges, "But you haven't answered my question."

Thranduil leads him out of the car park, and he gestures down the street. "There is a restaurant I frequented in my young years on this street; I believe it is still open. I had planned to dine when I arrived home but it seems that will be inconveniently late, and you will arrive home even later. Better to rearrange events."

Dinner. Bard feels his stomach flip. In truth, he hadn't planned on dining at all. There is a Macdonald's on the route between Thranduil's home and his where the drive-through staff knew him more than he would admit. Between pay checks, when fast food is an unappealing prospect he tended to fall back on cereals.

He'd seen the sort of restaurants Thranduil dined in, even if he didn't enter them and he is entirely confident he'd stand out like a hog in a beauty pageant with his polyester suit and rough manners. Two sets of cutlery he'd wrangled back before the fire when he'd celebrated anniversaries with his wife, but at Thranduil's kind of place he is pretty sure that the waiters dressed better than he did and each place is likely set with more cutlery than Bard had in his entire apartment.

Though Bard had a feeling that you couldn't find that sort of restaurant in this part of town. Around here is mostly sandwich and coffee shops that catered to the office workers. But if Thranduil says he knew somewhere then there must be a proper restaurant around here because Bard couldn't picture even a much younger Thranduil eating at the likes of subway.

And so, as he matches Thranduil’s long stride, Bard accepts that there is no way to anticipate what he is about to walk into.

The door that Thranduil stopped at belong to a older building, and Bard wondered if perhaps the restaurant had closed down since Thranduil had frequented it in his youth, because it looks more like a house than any sort of commercial property.

Thranduil pushed the door open with his usual confidence and Bard had the fleeting thinks even if this is somebody’s house, if Thranduil were to walk in an order food with his typical authoritative manner then the occupants would likely serve him anyway, in sheer surprise and awe.

Inside though, there were indeed several tables set out, in the manner of a small restaurant, although only one of them is occupied - by two elderly women talking passionately over coffee in a language Bard couldn’t place.

Thranduil doesn’t wait to be seated, moving through the dimly lit room to a table that is settled in an alcove, gesturing for Bard to sit before he did.

They rested at the table for a few minutes, Bard examining the restaurants interior and Thranduil seemingly deep in thinks, before a short, greying man made his way over to the table.

To Bard’s surprise the man began speaking to both of them in a language other than English. He is somehow unsurprised when Thranduil’s reply is equally impenetrable.

After a moment, Thranduil turned to Bard, and clearly saw the incomprehension on Bard’s face. “Ah…” he says. “This is one of the most authentic Italian restaurants in the city. Salomone settled here some fifty years ago, and claims to have already been too old learn any English at all, but his cuisine is unparalleled.”

Bard raises his eyebrows, wondering how the man had managed to stay in business, but nods. “I’m sure… however, Italian also didn’t feature on my school’s curriculum so…” he gestures loosely, indicating his dilemma.

“Perhaps it would be simpler for me to order for you,” Thranduil offers, “I assure you, there is little here that could disappoint.”

“That might be for the best,” Bard concedes.

Thranduil turns his attention back to Salomone and says a few other things to the man, who seemed to argue with him briefly before nodding and retreating around a corner.

“Well… what have I let myself in for?” Bard wonders aloud and Thranduil’s mouth quirks upwards.

“Heights of gastronomical pleasure, I assure you. Salomone takes great pride in his creations, even if he also has very strong opinions about them.”

“Were those strong opinions the reason for your argument?” Bard inquires, his tone slipping into something too close to teasing to be entirely professional.

Thranduil laughs lightly, the tilt of his head causing his hair to reflect gold in the dim light of the room. “Something like that,” he demurs “Salomone has little patience for people who stick to ‘usual’ orders instead of sampling the full range of his creations. He recommended his ostriche melograno imbevuto asparagi, but I already had a dish in mind which I suspect you will appreciate -verdure dell'orto con crema di formaggio.”

It isn’t the most helpful of explainations, the names of the dishes lost on Bard’s monolingual mind, but he finds himself impressed by the way Thranduil pronounced the italian words, in an accent that is doubtless flawless, for Thranduil would settle for nothing less.

Salomone returns with a bottle of wine, uncorking it and pouring a small amount of Thranduil to taste, a ritual that Bard recognised from television but had never partaken in himself. Thranduil nods his approval and Salomone placed the bottle onto the table, vanishing once more. Thranduil poured himself a generous glass and then reached over for Bard’s glass, but Bard held out a hand to stop him.

“Driving, remember,” he says, “No wine for me.”

Thranduil raises an eyebrow. “This is not a strong vintage; a single glass wouldn’t place you outside the limit.”

Bard shakes his head. “It’s the principle of the thing. I never drink if I’m driving,” he says, not pointing out that even if he did it would still be horribly inadvisable to drink while driving Thranduil, since he is supposed to be a professional.

Thranduil nods, placing the bottle back down on the table. “Another time then.”

Bard nods, although he wondered when Thranduil thinks an occasion might occur that he might be eating with Bard but not being driven by him.

They talk for a little while, it’s nothing particularly remarkable - Thranduil asks after Bard’s children, and Bard responds with questions about Greenwood’s projects, knowing that Thranduil’s relationship with his son has been difficult since the young man left home - but it’s engaging.

Bard is startled when plates are placed in front of them, Salomone appearing silently to place their orders in front of them, before vanishing into the darkness once again. It’s a little bit disconcerting. Bard doesn’t spend much time in restaurants, but he’s pretty sure that isn’t the usual way that waiters act. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing.

The dish that Thranduil has ordered him is comprised mostly of what appears to be vegetables, in a creamy white sauce. Bard is relieved to see that it is a sensible portion size, not like the tiny fancy dishes that normally seem to be the difference between food and gourmet cuisine.

He pushes a small piece of something green and leafy onto his fork, tipping it to ensure an even covering of the sauce, and tastes it.

Oh…

Suddenly Thranduil’s talk of heights of pleasure makes far more sense.

Also, Thranduil is staring at him.

He feels his face heat, realising that his reaction may have been a little undignified. Thranduil probably eats food like this all the time and doesn’t realise what a sensory overload this is compared to Bard’s usual fare.

Bard takes another bite, in an attempt to cover his reaction, being certain to control himself this time. “It’s good,” he remarks. He decides admitting that it’s probably the best thing he’s ever tasted would fall into the region of oversharing.

He pauses after his third bite, and raises his eyebrows at Thranduil who has yet to touch his food. “You don’t like yours?”

Thranduil twitches ever so slightly, and takes a pointed spoonful of his meal, something meaty in a red sauce, swallowing and then giving an approving nod.

After that, they’re primarily focused on their food. Two people who spend much of the time in a confined space together tend to have run out of idle chatter by the end of the day, and this is a meal to be savoured. Bard also finds he enjoys it even more now that Thranduil has stopped staring at him in such a disconcerting manner.

He declines desert once they finish up, he’s full and anyway, if the desert is anything like the dinner he might swoon from the overstimulation of it all. He offers to pay, but, even as he does it, he knows that it’s only a token gesture. Even if Thranduil had taken him up on the offer Bard would have listed it as a business expense, so he’d have ultimately been spending Thranduil’s money anyway.

There is a true chill in the air as they walk back to the car, but as anticipated, the road has finally cleared. It is perhaps still a little busier than usual for this time of night, but the traffic flows freely, which is sufficient for their needs.

Quarter of an hour later Bard pulls up outside of Thranduil’s building. The man exits the car but rather than immediately entering the building, Thranduil leans up against Bard’s door. He wound the window down, feeling the rush of cool night air on his face.

“Are you alright?” Bard couldn’t help asking.

Instead of answering Thranduil reaches in through the window, his long fingers curving around Bard’s jaw, close enough that Bard could feel the heat of his skin, put not actually touching. Bard swallowed. With as little explanation as he’d approached, Thranduil withdrew, turning his back on Bard and walking away. Bard stayed idling, watching Thranduil until he’d passed out of sight through the gleaming doors of his apartment building.

Bard shakes his head, pulling away. The wine may not have been strong, but Thranduil had consumed the bottle alone, perhaps some oddness is to be expected.

He leaves the window down.

 

*

 

Bard is walking back to the car from going to grab coffee, sometimes it’s quicker to leave it behind and walk than to drive through all of the city centre congestion, when he sees that Thranduil is also approaching the car. He glances at his watch, wondering if he’s made a mistake, but no, Thranduil isn’t due out of his meeting for an hour yet.

Then he spots the line of red across Thranduil’s cheek.

“You’re bleeding!” Bard exclaims, wondering how that could have happened.

Thranduil looks surprised, shifting sideways to try and a glimpse of his reflection in the car window.

“Where?”

Bard raises a hand to his face, pressing his fingertips lightly against the mirror of the spot where Thranduil is cut. “It’s not deep,” he says, “But it needs cleaning. I have… in the car, a first aid kid.”

Thranduil nods and Bard opens up the trunk, removing the zippered case from where it rested, alongside a spare tire, a toolkit suited to small roadside repairs, a flashlight, some emergency cereal bars, a spare suit and an assortment of clutter. Thranduil rarely carried more than a briefcase unless he is going to the airport, so Bard had commandeered the car’s storage space for his own. He probably spent more time in the car than in his apartment, and the car is probably more secure too.

He goes to pass the kit to Thranduil but then thinks better of it. “Here, there’s no point you breaking your back bending over to try and see yourself in the wing mirror or something, I’ll do it, I’ve plenty of practice.”

Thranduil’s mouth twitches up at the corners, “Breaking my back bending over – exactly how old do you think I am, Bard?”

Bard feels himself flush slightly at his own poor phrasing, but also at the way that Thranduil dragged out the sounds of his name like a tease. The man’s sense of humour always did seem to come at somebody else’s expense, but Bard enjoyed it far more when the target is someone else.

“You know what I meant,” he grouses, “Just trying to save you some trouble, but if you’re prefer,” he held the kit out to Thranduil, who pushed it away with a shake of his head.

“No, by all means…” he takes several paces, until he is leant on the edge of the bonnet, and gestures Bard towards him. The flush that had been fading from Bard’s face returns with a vengeance. Generally he is quite good at tuning out how attractive Thranduil really is, but if the man is going to insist on reclining on the hood, all long limbs and dark eyes, looking like a model from one of the posters Bard had on his walls as a teenager (albeit in somewhat more expensive clothing)… Bard took a long steady breath and focused on the cut on Thranduil’s hoping the way an excessive amount of blood is flowing to his face isn’t too obvious.

He pulls an antiseptic wipe from its packet, swabbing at the cut. It surely stings but Thranduil doesn’t flinch. The blood flow is slow, and Bard suspectes that Thranduil would object to having a sticking plaster affixed to his face, so he fishes some gauze out of case and presses it to Thranduil’s cheek. “Hold this in place,” he instructs. Thranduil placed his hand over Bard’s, and Bard is careful to avoid their hands brushing as he let go and stepped away. “Do you still want to go into the office next?” he asks, with a nod to Thranduil’s injury.

“Of course,” the man replies, “Tis but a scratch.”

Bard can’t help the laugh that slips from his throat at that deadpan reference. He wouldn’t have guessed Thranduil to be a Monty Python fan but he’s also quite sure that wasn’t a coincidence. Then again, anybody who hadn’t spent the last forty years under a rock would probably have at least passing familiarity with the more popular quotes. Still, it is something to keep in mind.

“How did you even…” Bard begins. “I know you said your work could be cutthroat but I didn’t think you meant it quite so literally.”

“Tempers frayed and things were thrown,” Thranduil explains. “It happens more frequently than you might expect, although they rarely make impact.”

“Should have scheduled it for the afternoon, would have had you awake enough to duck,” Bard comments.

“Advice I will keep in mind,” Thranduil agrees. Of course, representing a company as big as Greenwood meant that he probably couldn’t simply stop dealing with this company because of this altercation, but Bard felt himself annoyed on Thranduil’s behalf anyway, whatever complaints he might have about Esgaroth, at least they had strict policies regarding violence towards their staff, if only as protection against lawsuits.

Bard crosses his fingers in the hope that Thranduil’s dealings with this particular company would be limited in the future. It was perhaps not as unrealistic of a hope as it could have been, because Greenwood was all about fair-trade and ethics and, as Bard explains, “If they’re willing to lash out at a business partner like that god knows how they treat their employees.”

Thranduil hums and Bard mentally reviews Thranduil’s schedule. “You’ve no meetings planned for this afternoon, so I’ll be dropping you at the office and then on call, yes?”

Thranduil hums again, and then says, “I suppose so, although I plan on finishing early, so if I don’t need you before then I estimate I’ll be leaving at around half-past four.”

That, for Thranduil, was shockingly early. “Edging into long weekend territory there, aren’t you?” Bard jokes.

Surprisingly, Thranduil nods. “I find I want time away from certain business contacts. While you are on call this weekend, as usual, I doubt that I shall have need of you. I have a great amount of work to be completed in my home office and have made it clear that I am not to be called to meetings except in the most dire of emergencies,” Thranduil explained.

Bard nods in return, but he can’t help but wonder if perhaps this is a sign that whatever altercation had gone down has affected Thranduil more deeply than he would have anticipated. This unprecedented deviation from routine, especially when Thranduil had made no previous mention of it, sets warning bells ringing in Bard’s ears.

It is enough to make him half hope he would be called in over the weekend.

 

*

 

Thranduil sticks to his plans, and Bard hears nothing from the man until late on Sunday evening, a quick confirmation text that Bard will pick him up at the usual time of 7:30am. A weekend off is rare, and Bard has enjoyed the time spent with his kids, but he doesn’t find it difficult to fall back into his routine. After two whole days without any contact with Thranduil Bard finds he’s missed adult company. The man is in a meeting now, and while Bard waits he scans the headlines: democrats promise 10% tax cuts to poorest households, Republicans promise 20% tax cuts for high earning businesses, top model snorts coke?, billionaire Thror Durinson dead in domestic accident, heavy storms forecast, immigrants to blame for global warming? – sometimes he didn’t know why he bothered. He tosses the paper onto the front passenger seat as he waits for Thranduil’s approach.

It doesn’t take long. He uses pre-empting the man’s arrival as an opportunity to indulge in one of the habits that he’d been told were expected of him as a professional, but while tended to exasperate Thranduil and stepped out of the car to greet the man. If Thranduil would insist on Bard breaking protocol by staying in the cars, then Bard figured their relationship is informal enough that he could also get away with ignoring the man’s orders once in a while. From what he’d seen of Thranduil’s colleagues the man got his own way far more often that is good for him.

Thranduil smooths his hair as he approaches It is rare to see the man looking anything less than perfectly put together and Bard couldn’t help but smiling a little at seeing his client a little dishevelled. Although…

“You have a,” Bard gestured, and then, realising he is being ridiculous, leaned forward and brushes the spider off of Thranduil’s lapel, noticing the feel of silk more than he did the insect.

Thranduil nods in acknowledgement as Bard opened the door for him.

“What kind of company has a spider problem in their meeting room?” Bard wondered.

Thranduil sighed. “One I won’t be dealing with again.” He slid elegantly into the back seat, gasping the door and pulling it shut before Bard could do it for him.

Oh well, Bard would count this as a tie.

He got back into his own seat. “The meeting didn’t go well then?”

“I got what I planned,” Thranduil admitted. “But I have decided it isn’t worth the trouble to pursue it further.”

Bard chuckled as pulled out of the car park. No, nothing that would put dirt on Thranduil’s clothes, or disrupt the flow of his silken locks is likely to be something the man would tolerate for anything but the most appealing of motivations.

 

*

 

Even by his usual high standards, Thranduil is looking uncommonly smart. On anybody else Bard would suspect that the charcoal wool suit and steel blue silk shirt would give the impression of being overdressed, but Thranduil carries it off as if it were natural.

Bard takes a good look at Thranduil before he gets in the car – it wouldn’t do to drive distracted.

There’s nothing on schedule today that explains Thranduil’s sharp look, he’ll spend most of the day in the office, except for a lunch meeting with a longstanding contact who surely doesn’t need to be impressed.

Perhaps it’s just that the clothes are new and Thranduil wants to try them out. Bard isn’t sure he’s seen this particular outfit before, and he suspects that Thranduil is just vain enough about his appearance to get a kick out of dressing up. All of Thranduil’s clothes look new and expensive to Bard though, so it’s hard to say. And he’s got no intention of asking – he’s learned his lesson about discussing clothes with Thranduil, it only ever ends in scathing criticism of Bard’s own wardrobe.

The drive into the city is smooth, they’re running early enough that Bard is tempted to stop for coffee en-route, but since it looks like he has a fairly low-key day ahead of him, he supposes that he should probably drop Thranduil off first and then deal with it. He can see the skyscraper that Greenwood is based in towering over them on the right

Bard checks his side mirror to see if the turn is clear.

He hears a sound he remembers from his first humiliating attempt at driving his father’s car at sixteen.

Shattering plexiglass.

Thranduil cries out and Bard slams on the breaks as he hears a sound that years of watching action movies allow him to identify as a gunshot. He’s looking back at Thranduil, sees the shattered window and hole where the second bullet has punched through the door, only missing because Thranduil been thrown forward when Bard braked and is pressing down hard on the gas before he even has time to fully process what he’s seeing.

He is reassured by the sound of Thranduil cursing as they hurtle forwards. Traffic lights are irrelevant compared to the need to get away from the shooting. What the hell had they just been caught in the middle of? Terrorism? Gangs?

The sound of yet more gunfire, still close behind them, drew his gaze. They were being followed. He could see the dark lines of what he thinks might be a rifle being held out of the window of a black Ford transit – one of the new models although he can’t place which.

He has the information he needs though.

They are caught in the middle of nothing. They are the target.

Somebody just tried to kill Thranduil.

Somebody is still trying to kill Thranduil.

He pulls a sharp right cutting into a short back street, and then an equally hard left, his seatbelt cutting into his neck.

Once or twice he’s driven politicians and celebrities, had to get them away from journalists and paparazzi or hordes of adoring fans.

This is not the same. His previous experiences were not blood pounding in his ears, hands tight on the wheel; failure is not an option terror.

“Stay low,” he says to Thranduil, out of shot of cameras but bullets could pierce the car. Thranduil doesn’t need the advice, but Bard is falling back on what he knows best.

Whoever wants Thranduil dead has opened fire in the middle of a busy street in broad daylight. The police will be on their way.

He’s approaching the intersection, glad of his familiarity with these streets as he tries to figure out the best turns to make.

It’s a blind junction and it’s probably easier to go straight ahead than to risk turning and facing the unknown.

It’s a blind junction and a bus pulls out.

Bard is quick with the brake but not quick enough. He hears the crunch of metal, and knows the bumper is likely mangled.

He is slammed back against the seat. No amount of high end cushioning and leather upholstery could make that comfortable. He vaguely thinks that the shooters must be incompetent, that they have still managed to do no real damage, but what does he know about it – perhaps hitting a moving target really is that hard. The shots aren’t coming frequently either, so the shooters are clear aiming and not just shooting wildly.

Which means that he needs to keep moving. He pulls the car into reverse, a dazed glance suggests they’ve done minimal damage to the bus so he dismisses it, ignoring the alarming noises that their own engine is emitting and pulls left, accelerating onto the main shopping street. It’s a good thing he had chosen not to gamble on the blind junction, because as he turns he sees that the right is all pedestrianized.

Not that driving on the left is much better. He swerves around a roped-off area of road works and he hears blaring horns behind him, and the sound of approaching sirens, but all he can focus on is the road ahead. He is driving way too fast for such a busy area, weaving in and out of his lane and ignoring nearly every driving lesson he ever had.

It feels like one of Bain’s videogames, his focus torn between the road and his pursuer. None of the video games had you peering through a cracked windscreen though or the roar of wind through the shattered window. Videogames had never set his heart pounding or left him with sweat pooling on the back of his neck. There is no definable endpoint here, no press x to pause and rinse the taste of blood from his mouth.

Finally, the sirens are finally close enough that he can also see flashing lights, and the van pulls abruptly left, speeding away from them. Two police cars follow it, two more pulling up beside Bard. He finds himself reluctant to pull up for a moment, but then shakes himself out of it. In some of the most graceless driving he’d performed in years, he let the car list towards the curb and they stopped with a jolt.

The police swarm them, opening his door, and instructing him to get out of the car. He struggled to uncurl his hands from their death-grip on the wheel, but he could hear Thranduil’s door open and shut, and he followed.

The police seem to back off as he turns to Thranduil. They move away, to secure or clear or investigate the area – Bard finds he does not know, or care to.

“Are you harmed?” Thranduil sounds concerned and without really meaning to, Bard stepped into his space, checking the man over for injuries. Shards of the window are caught in the fabric of his jacket, sparkling almost like diamonds in the sunlight and Bard fights to hold back a hysterical laugh. “I’m unhurt,” Thranduil assures him, ignoring the impromptu pat-down he is receiving. Bard isn’t sure what he is expecting to find, other than the relieve he feels at having Thranduil solid and breathing under his hands. “Bard. Are you injured?”

Bard shakes his head, ignoring the dizziness he feels as he does so. His shoulders ache from where he’d collided the seat and it felt like it might bruise, and he’d been scratched by shards of the broken window but there didn’t seem to be anything alarmingly wrong with him.

Thranduil nods and for a moment they breath in synchrony.      

Bard slides his hands up and grips Thranduil’s collar, is seized by a sudden wild, reckless impulse. They are alive. He leans forward and tugs sharply, bringing Thranduil’s man’s mouth crashing down onto his.

His heart is racing and he felt weak at the knees and he knew that some of what he is feeling is adrenaline but it’s also years of seeing Thranduil, night and day, of the slowly blurring boundaries between client and friend. Thranduil’s mouth is hot and startlingly pliant under his as he let his hands fall down to grasp at Thranduil’s lapels, no doubt creasing the designer fabric beyond salvation.

He can feel the heat of the man as he presses up against him, the still too fast thud of his heart in his chest, and their breaths mingle and then Thranduil’s is drawing back, placing his hand steady on Bard’s shoulders. They were still close enough that their breath is mixing, but now Bard could see Thranduil’s furrowed brow and cool gaze.

His stomach flipped with embarrassment, but he refused to look down or turn away.

They stand like that for a long drawn out moment.

“Adrenaline,” Thranduil murmurs.

Not true. Or at least not wholly true. The ghost of terror and the ecstasy of survival coursing through his veins is not doubt to blame for Bard acting so recklessly, but now more than ever he is aware of how long he has wanted that. Thranduil’s unusual hours and constant meetings have made him a companion to Bard, his dry wit a friend. That Thranduil is stunning is obvious to anybody who looks upon him, but it is his self-possession and his sly arrogance, and even glimpses of a fearsome temper, that have caused lust to spark in Bard during so many of their encounters. Then there is the affection, which has growth with every smile, with every small kindness, with every … until Bard fears he might be slipping towards something deeper.

But he will not lose these things over a kiss.

Instead, he says, “Adrenaline… yes… I, I’m sorry, I’m glad you’re alright.” And if Thranduil notices that his smile is shaky and his voice wavers, well…. Adrenaline.

Thranduil steps back and Bard wonders at the fact the he feels so bereft at this return to something nearer to normal.

Thranduil pulls his phone from his pocket. “I’m going to call my lawyer. We will need to give our accounts to the police,” Thranduil says.

Bard is sure that his consternation must be writ plain across his face. “Why would you need a lawyer? You did nothing wrong.”

Thranduil shoots him an unreadable look. “You were considering speaking to the police  _without_ a lawyer?” he asks incredulously.

“Yes,” Bard says and he shrugs. It doesn’t surprise him that somebody in Thranduil’s position is so careful about legal matters; he has a company to worry about as well as himself. “I don’t have a lawyer, and I’d rather get this sorted quickly than wait around for one to be provided when I don’t need one.”

Thranduil shakes his head. “You will use one of my lawyers then,” he says, and when Bard begins to protests Thranduil reaches out to grasp his forearm firmly and insists. “Bard, promise me. You will not speak to them without one of my lawyers present.”

And Bard acquiesces. His head is pounding with fear and lust and frustrated embarrassment, but he trusts Thranduil. He will wait for the man’s lawyer if it means so much to Thranduil, even if he cannot understand why.

 

*

 

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=mhg4up)

 

*

 

The police question him thoroughly, and he is glad that Thranduil pressed him to accept the man’s lawyer, when the conversation turns to reckless driving and to property damage. He doesn’t even have time to open his mouth before Thranduil’s laywer is talking about the danger to the public that staying put would have presented. It seems like the police quickly realise arguing this would be more trouble than it’s worth, especially when Thranduil’s lawyer mentions that Greenwood would be willing to compensate damage done in defence of its owner. It’s past noon when they are finally finished with him, with a firm suggestion that he keep his phone on and stay in town just in case they need to ask him about something else once they have finished reviewing all of the evidence. The car is counted among that evidence and Bard knows that’s going to be a nuisance, but he finds that although it’s only midday he is exhausted beyond the point of caring.

He stops at the front desk of the station to ask after Thranduil and is informed that the man is still in an interview room, but that they are likely nearly finished with him if Bard wants to wait.

He nearly doesn’t. Two cups of coffee and several hours of in depth questioning have left him calm, but as much as wants to savour the memory of that one-off kiss, that he now knows what he barely dared imagine, he finds the recollection tinged with embarrassment. If he waits, he will discover all too soon exactly how awkward things between him and Thranduil must be now.

But if he doesn’t, the anticipation will weigh upon him until they meet again, and fleeing will only draw attention to any discomfiture.

When Thranduil finally turns up though, he has little interest in Bard’s company.

Things are definitely going to be awkward.

“I have arrangements to make,” Thranduil says, “It seems unlikely that I would get any real work done now today. I will be taking a cab to speak with some associates and then going home.”

Bard finds himself trailing after Thranduil as the man walked to the door out of sheer habit. With the car destroyed, Bard had no transport available to him, there was only a handful of change in his wallet and the idea of walking all the way from the city centre to his apartment does not appeal.

In the end, he asks his question plainly. It has been too strange of a morning for him to indulge in doublespeak and subtlety. “So am I on or off call then?”

Thranduil shoots him a look. Bard gets the impression that there is a great deal of meaning in the look, but he’s got no damn idea what, so he just stares back. It’s a technique he’s found very effective with Tilda, and it apparently works on Thranduil as well, because after a long moment the man sighs and says, “No. There is no purpose to you being on call without a car,” which, wow, Bard must be more shook up than he’d realised not to put that together on his own. “You’ll need to go into the office at some point to arrange a replacement; in the meantime your company should be able to provide some gas-guzzler to make do.” He offers Bard a fifty for a taxi, which Bard accepts, resolving to make the ten minute walk to Greenwood’s offices a priority in order to sort out a replacement as quickly as possible. While he can claim an official Esgaroth car for Thranduil, it will likely mean he’s under more scrutiny from his boss than ever while he’s driving it. No amount of gunfire with make his boss not see this as Bard crashing a car, and he isn’t looking forward to the hassle.

 

*

People stare at him as he crossed Greenwood’s immaculate lobby. He’s baffled at first, a company so large must have unfamiliar visitors frequently, he is sure the last time he was here, first and only time, he passed by unnoticed, not gawked at. Greenwood is building of polished metal and spotless glass however, and it’s not so long before he catches a glimpse of his reflection.

He is genuinely surprised at his own disarray. His suit sleeve is torn and there is a still sluggishly bleeding cut on his neck that has stained his collar, and are those yet more shards of broken glass in his hair? He’d through he’d managed to comb them all out while waiting at the police station.

It seems that Thranduil has called ahead though, for when Bard explains to the receptionist what he’s there for the young man smiles alarmingly brightly and presents him with a key to Thranduil’s office. It seems all of the necessary paperwork has already been arranged and filled into to the best of Thranduil’s much underutilised P.A’s ability, and now waits, requiring only a few clarifications of specifics and Bard’s signature.

People side-eye him in the elevator, but with each floor a few of them depart, until Bard is left alone to ride up the last few floors to where only Thranduil’s office sits. He steps out of the elevator, feeling more out of place than ever as he walks down the elegant hallway to Thranduil’s office door. The lighting is soft, the carpet softer, and is no electronic hum or clank of elevator machinery, only a blanket of preternatural silence. Last time he visited Greenwood, making the initial arrangements for working with Thranduil, it had been the man’s P.A he’d dealt with, this space, for all he has delivered Thranduil to it so frequently, is unknown to him.

He wonders distractedly what the rest of the floor is used for, because there are doors other than Thranduil’s, not the ornate wood panelling and frosted glass of offices, but plain metal. Servers or storage maybe, Bard has a vision of endless filing cabinets, although how the files would get up here when nobody comes near to Thranduil’s office without summons he couldn’t imagine.

He slips the key into the lock, and it turns smoothly. He grips the handle and finds himself hesitating, drawing in a slow breath, a knot of anticipation in his stomach. This is Thranduil’s office. Private, despite the P.As and business associated which must enter, and in many ways second only to his home.

Bard sighs in exasperation with himself and enters.

It is and is not as he expected. Clean and well organised, but the furniture is more old-fashioned than Bard thought Thranduil’s tastes ran to, an ornately carved wooden desk, a lamp that looks like it could have been taken from the set of a period drama.

There are chairs on both sides of the desk, and Bard settles into the one nearest the door, clearly intended for guests. It’s very comfortable. Perhaps the sealed off rooms contain more chairs like this, for surely there must be occasions where Thranduil has more than one visitor at a time.

The papers are stacked on Thranduil’s desk as he was told they would be; a metal ballpoint that Bard doesn’t doubt is worth at least fifty times what he’d ever consider paying for a pen placed on top. He finds himself hoping that the pen has a great deal of ink in it, because he can see no others and it would be awfully embarrassing to begin filling out the forms and then have to traipse all the way back to the reception because the pen ran dry. He shakes his head, feels less dizzy this time than he did a few hours ago, no, Thranduil’s people are more efficient than that.

There are post-its stuck in the paper where he is needed, but he takes his time reading through it anyway. He doesn’t doubt Thranduil’s P.A’s ability to fill the forms in properly, but if there was one thing his insurance company taught him it was not to sign something assuming you understood it – better to check.

The reading is dull, and Bard doesn’t bother to try to guess at why Greenwood required fifteen pages of forms in order to add a new corporate car to their existing fleet, especially when Bard was already registered as a driver, but it was a simple matter of ticking the anticipated boxes and signing his name half a dozen times. It takes perhaps ten minutes. When he is finished he lays the papers on the desk, straightening the edges as best he can and laying the pen back as he’d found it. Now it is time for him to leave.

He doesn’t move. There is nothing appealing ahead of him, just arranging for a temporary car and then driving home alone to his empty apartment.

He knows the impulse he’s feeling is wrong. This is Thranduil’s office, for Bard to be invited in unsupervised is a display of trust, and Bard should not abuse that trust.

He stands up and walks, not towards the door, but to the row of bookshelves that stand along the far wall. He runs his finger along shelves, scanning titles, but there is little of interest here, books on economics and business mostly, in old-fashioned bindings to make them look good on the shelves. Bard doesn’t even need to look closely to tell that the art on the wall in generic, likely put there to impress visitors rather than because Thranduil enjoys it. They are originals, not prints, and likely by someone that would impress the sort of people who are impressed by that sort of thing, but they don’t interest Bard.

He’d wondered if being in this room might give him a glimpse into Thranduil’s mind, some deeper understanding of this man he knows so well, and yet at the same time hardly knows at all, but everything Bard sees seems to be part of the same polished front that Thranduil wears.

Examining the bookshelves puts him on Thranduil’s side of the desk. There are six drawers, three to the right and three to the left.

He knows he shouldn’t.

He walks over, examines them. Each drawer has its own lock. If they are locked, he decides, he will leave, and think nothing more on the matter. If they are unlocked… Thranduil seems the type to guard his secrets closely, he would not keep things he wouldn’t share in an unlocked drawer.

He starts on the left. The first drawer is papers, stationary and a cellphone charger, all things that would be scattered across the desk if this were Bard’s office, it makes sense. The second contains a phonebook and a leather bound address book, and here Bard is learning something about Thranduil, because the man seems like such a lover of technology, he would not have expected him to keep duplicates of his contacts on paper. The final drawer Bard looks into only briefly. It is a picture of Thranduil and one who looks much like him, although far younger – his son. It is telling that Thranduil keeps this picture in his office, more telling still that he keeps it out of sight. Bard glances towards the door and wonders if he should stop now, but no; he will finish what he’s started, and suffer the consequences later.

He moves to the right.

The top drawer, again, is innocuous, a stack of account files. The second amuses Bard. In it is a tie and a folded shirt. Bard tries to imagine what sort of things might occur in Thranduil’s meetings that would require such things, but he suspects it has to do with the man’s preference for being pristine at all times. In all his years of driving Thranduil he’s never known the man change his shirt or tie during the day though, so keeping spares seems like an unneeded precaution.

He pauses on the handle of the third drawer. If this side follows the pattern of the opposite, then this will be the more revelatory

He pulls, and stares.

He did not know what he expected, but he knows it was not this.

Not the dark form of a handgun and an open packet of bullets.

Bard had driven for plenty of corporate figures before, but Thranduil is the first to own gun. Generally, those who felt that they might be under threat hired bodyguards. Elite businessmen didn’t get their own hands dirty. It might have been a response to the shooting the other day, but the gun didn’t look new, the box of ammunition in the case is two-thirds emptied. When Bard lifted his hand from the gun his fingertips came away dirty and when he lifted them to his nose, smelling faintly of smoke.

Surely, Thranduil hadn’t had the time or a reason to have not only obtained, but also fired, this gun.

He picks up the gun, curling his fingers around the trigger, and tries to picture Thranduil’s hands (longer, paler, slimmer) doing the same.

The image is not as incongruous as he would have expected. Thranduil has a temper that burns long and cold as often as it flares up in an inferno, Bard has seen as much in the man’s business dealings, and a certain ruthlessness too. Thranduil has never given any indication of being exploitative in his business dealings, but Bard is quite sure the way the man has handled rivals has been, from time to time, unethical.

The lines Thranduil has drawn for his morals are clearly different from Bard’s – could he have it in him to kill?

Bard’s stomach churns at the thinks, but he has not forgotten how recently somebody has tried to kill Thranduil.

He isn’t sure what he’s thinking when he slips the gun under his jacket, except that Thranduil won’t be back in his office until tomorrow morning and that Bard will see him before then, can do something about this, whatever it is. Because if Thranduil is scared for his life, if he’d feared what had happened this morning, if he thought to use the gun to defend himself, then surely Bard could suggest better options, options that were more likely to work, without Thranduil having to deal with things directly. And if there was something to the fact that there was already spent ammunition, that Thranduil has already needed to use the gun… Bard cuts off that train of thought and progresses to the elevator. Ceinwen always told him not to borrow trouble.

 

*

 

He struggles to find a cab willing to take him to Esgaroth’s main garage, he’d be more annoyed by this, but he’s seen the state he’s in and honestly, if he were a cab driver he’d be wary to. Arranging a replacement car is even more annoying than he anticipated. When he explains he needs a replacement he’d met with the assumption that it’s through some sort of mistake as his, that he’s crashed through incompetence, though he’d like to see how any of them handled driving under that sort of pressure. There are also more than a few remarks on the state of his appearance and he’s glad his boss isn’t there, or he’d likely be getting a lecture about keeping up company standards. Finally, after a great deal of hassle, Braga hands over the keys to a Mercedes S-class, the only car which comes close to meeting Thranduil’s expectations for quality and comfort and environmentally friendly.

The drive home is peculiar. He finds himself tense, heart thumping when he catches sight of a van in the rear-view mirror, and fighting the urge to push down harder than he needs to on the gas. It's absurd, it is a new car and Thranduil isn't with him anyway, but with the gun sitting ominously on the front passenger seat and the knowledge of what it feels like to be hunted fresh in his mind he cannot calm himself.

He has little choice though. Thranduil has no need of him today, so all there is for Bard to do is to go home. He wishes he could simply open a beer and forget the day’s events, but now he's seen that gun, he can't call it a freak accident or misunderstanding, or a one off incident. But who? Why? Greenwood is a well-regarded corporation that for the most part deals fairly with its competitors, although it has no close rivals, and while Thranduil is abrasive, he also borders on reclusive, seeming to have little social life outside of work. Anyway, if anything happened to Thranduil, all of his assets would go to his son and, while Bard knows they aren't close, he thinks the young man would be unlikely to initiate any drastic upheavals. He's never met Legolas, but from the stories he's heard, he thinks that Thranduil and his son are exceedingly alike, and it is only they who are blind to such a thing.

He slips the gun in the glove box when he pulls into his building's parking lot, deciding that he doesn't want it in his home and tries to forget anyway, numbing his mind with beer and daytime TV. He sits for a long time

 

*

 

He wakes to the voice of an overly cheery weather forecaster and groans at the realisation that he's fallen asleep in his chair. It is half past five in the morning and his back aches and he's not awake enough to think about his problems right now. He's also too awake to go back to sleep though, so he finally strips off his damaged suit regretting not washing the blood out of his shirt sooner, the stain is likely set, and staggers into the shower.

The steam soothes his stiff muscles, and the intermittent blasts of icy water from the heater that is likely older than he is serve to wake him enough that he can plan.

He needs to talk to Thranduil and he doesn't want to put it off any longer than he has to. It might not be fair to confront somebody about their likely illegal firearm first thing in the morning but this isn't a conversation Bard can have while driving and he doesn't want to wait until he's taken Thranduil home.

It’s strange to pull into a parking spot outside of Thranduil’s building, instead of just idling in the street.

He slips the car keys into one pocket, and after a moment’s hesitation, tucks the gun into the torn lining of his jacket – god knows what people would think if he walked into Thranduil’s building clearly armed.

Bard has talked most of the guys who takes shifts as the doormen of Thranduil’s building when he’s arrived a little too early to collect the man, and he doesn’t think he’ll have a problem convincing the man to let him in.

When he approaches though, the man is absent, so Bard simply ducks inside. Next time Bard speaks with him he’ll have to ask though, this doesn’t seem very secure; surely the building should have a better procedure for someone going on break than simply leaving their post absent.

It’s his first time inside Thranduil’s building, but it’s a lot like what he’s always pictured from the outside and his knowledge of Thranduil’s taste. A mixture of sharp lines and modern minimalism, coupled with wood panelling and potted plants that give the place a natural almost garden-like air rather than the clinical empty feeling that Bard usually associates with spaces like lobbies.

He bypasses the elevator in favour of the stairs. He knows that Thranduil’s apartment is on the tenth floor, which is not such a hard climb, and honestly he embraces the delay. He’s still not sure what he expects from this confrontation. He wants to understand, why Thranduil had a gun, if he truly had used it and why? He wants to know why Thranduil is shot at, because in this new light the reasons he’d suggested to the police, corporate rivalries or people looking to inherit his money, seem flimsy and vague.

At a light jog, he reaches the tenth floor quickly, but when he steps from the stairwell to the corridor he knew at once that something is not right.

The second door on the left (a glance at the numbers on the others allowed him to work out that it is indeed Thranduil’s door, 1004) hangs open.

Bard moves slowly down the hall, listening carefully, hoping to pick out some noise of conversation that indicated that this situation is not as strange as it looks – that Thranduil had opened the door to let in a breeze, or had recently returned with his arms full and not returned to shut the door yet.

But a window would have been far more sensible for a breeze, and though they had parted on strange terms Bard didn’t want to think that Thranduil would have ventured out and disdained Bard’s services.

He steps into the apartment hall, and takes the first door to the right. It opens into a kitchen, oak cupboards, marble countertops and chrome fixtures. He remember his surprise at how old fashioned certain aspects of Thranduil’s office were – this kitchen is a better reflection of what he would have guessed the man’s tastes to be.

It ought to look like something out of a catalogue, but granola is spilt from the counter to the floor. The box lies upside-down on the ground, and next to it lies the shattered remains of a bowl.

There’s a deep gouge in one of the cupboard doors and a half peeled banana has browned on the countertop.

It’s possible that Thranduil could still be in here somewhere, perhaps he came over with a sudden illness and retreated into the bed or bathroom, Bard lies to himself. It’s not very convincing. He steps out onto the hall, determined to figure out exactly what the deal here it. The whole apartment is silent and Bard reasons that it makes sense to start with the door opposite – when in doubt be methodical.

The handle is warmer than expected under his hand, he pushes open the door and freezes.

The room is clearly Thranduil’s office, there are bookshelves along one wall, and a file cabinet on the other, in the centre of the room a huge desk topped with several stacks of paper and a high end computer.

Rifling through the desk drawers is a huge man.

Bard steps backwards, eyes darting towards the exit, but before he can coordinate himself into a run the man’s voice rings out, foreboding and impossibly deep.

“Don’t move.”

All of Bard’s instincts scream at him to flee, but he finds himself petrified – a deer in the headlights, a rabbit in a trap – as the man turns to face him.

As the man straightens Bard’s first judgement of him is confirmed. He is massive, taller than Bard, even taller than Thranduil, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. He is wearing a suit, but it didn’t give him any aura of class, only emphasising his bulk. It is made of some kind of weird leathery substance, snakeskin, or perhaps crocodile, the sort of material that screamed not just wealth but pointed careless consumption. He smiled at Bard.

It showed too many teeth.

"Ahhhh... the driver," the man says, "I'm afraid your master isn't available right now."

Even as he shudders at the man's voice, the stomach-clenching rumble of an eighteen-wheeler overtaking too close, Bard balks in indignation. "He's not my master. What are you doing here?"

The man laughs. Like his smile, it isn't friendly.

"I'd tell you to run along home," the man says, in a tone that would have seemed patronising to even the youngest of children, "But it’s a little too late for that I'm afraid."

Bard ignores him. "What happened here? Where is Thranduil?"

"I'm afraid a man in his line of work makes many enemies..."

"Yes, I know. He is already shot at this week. Get to the point."

"He's beyond your reach now. I'm afraid the Durinson's were afraid he is encroaching on their territory. They don't like things like that."

Durinson is a name Bard recognised. It had taken a moment to place, but he quickly remembered reading it in a newspaper several days ago. They were famous for the gold and jewel mines they owned, although they had side-lines in a dozen other industries. None that seemed to strongly overlap with Greenwood's though, unless Thranduil is planning an expansion that Bard didn't know about, but that seemed unlikely - driving Thranduil meant Bard knew most of the man's business. He says as much.

"So you truly know nothing..." the other man responds. "No, it is his other businesses that have annoyed them.” He smirked at Bard. "Murder. The murder of Thror Durinson."

"No!" Bard protests, the gun suddenly a dozen times heavier in his jacket."Why would Thranduil kill a business rival? That's absurd."

"He'd kill Durinson because that's what he does. Greenwood might be about fair trade and reducing the pay gap between its highest and lowest employees, but Thranduil funds his lifestyle in other ways. My associate told him the Durinson's were dealing in blood diamonds and offered him a sum at the higher end of five figures; he took the job without hesitating."

Bard shakes his head with such force he felt a rush to dizziness. "No. No. I don't believe it. It can't... If you'd done that why would you tell me?" he challenged.

"Because who can you tell? Oropherion will be killed by the Durinson's, who will be caught and killed during their arrest. And then nobody will stand in my way."

"I'll go to the police," Bard threatens.

The man laughs. "You aren't going anywhere,” he waved his hand in the direction of the stove. “Things can go so wrong when you meddle with gas appliances. A spurned and fired employee, attempting arson out of revenge is unfortunately trapped in the ill-conceived inferno and is identified by dental records. The police will have better things to do; my men will make sure of it."

"Why?" Bard asks, half out of wanting to understand, half stalling for time.

The man laughs. "Erebor and Greenwood. Both companies are in my way at the moment but the disarray of killings will give them something else to occupy themselves with. There is a potentially very prosperous source uranium in an area the Durinsons claim but do not use. I plan to take it right out from under their oversized noses.”

“And then what? You’d need plants, refineries, huge resources to do anything with it.”

The man laughed dismissively. “Idiot. I’ll  _do_ nothing. It can be mined and contained and stored in my warehouses north of the city,” the man says. “And then I’ll sell it to the highest bidder. And I assure you, the bids will be high.”

Bard felt his stomach clench. He was no scientist, but he knew damn sure that storing radioactive material in a warehouse couldn’t be that easy or safe. This was so much bigger than Thranduil it seemed – thousands of people lived and worked in the north of the city, his children included.

“I’ll call the police,” Bard says, reaching into his jacket.

The man draws a long thin knife from his coat.

Bard’s fingers curl around cold metal.

The knife flashes as the man steps forward.

Bard aims. He shoots.

The sound of the shot, and the man’s cry, reverberate painfully in his ears.

The man is on the ground, his blood pooling, strangely dark, on Thranduil’s tiles. Bard thinks that he ought to approach the man. His head is full of disjointed thoughts of checking to see how badly hurt the man is, performing first aid, calling the police, but Bard’s shot hit true in the left of the man’s chest and out again, and even without checking Bard knows that none of these options are of use.

He has just killed a man.

He chokes on the bile rising in his throat. He suddenly wants the gun as far away from him as possible, but he cannot unwrap his hands from its grip.

Pain flares in his knees as he crashes to the tiled floor, curling around himself in horror.

He’s not sure how many minutes pass as he fights to regain control. He finds himself crawling over to the corpse, lifting the knife from where the man dropped it as he fell. It is a solid and strangely reassuring weight in his hand. He touches the tip of his thumb to the blade, pulls it back sharply when blood beads instantly. He doesn’t doubt that the knife is as deadly as it looks. It’s a cold comfort, but it is one, that this man would have killed him if Bard hadn’t been faster. As is the knowledge of what the man’s plans were. His life is no great loss for the world, as little as Bard likes having been the one to take it.

He doesn’t want to touch the man’s corpse. It feels like adding insult to injury, and despite his threats and insinuations, despite the fact that everything about him screamed evil in a way that Bard wished he could deny existed in the world, Bard feels uncomfortable. He can argue that killing the man was necessary, searching his corpse just makes Bard feel like scum. He does it anyway, finding a wallet containing a stack of cash and a black business card, just Smaug and a number printed on it in white.

He pockets the card but leaves the cash, and turns his attention to the papers that the man was taking from Thranduil’s desk.

They are profiles of people, all wealthy or powerful, all supposedly corrupt. All recently deceased.

Bard would like to tell himself that it doesn’t mean anything, but the stranger’s words have put doubt in his heart, and these papers make the organ pound, suspicion seeping through his veins.

Thinking about what the man suggested Thranduil might have done prompts Bard to recall his reason for being here in the first place as the man’s other words echo in his mind. Thranduil has been taken.

Thranduil will be killed.

He shuts the apartment door firmly behind him as he leaves, realising vaguely that he’s lucky that nobody heard the gunshot and came rushing down to see what was going on, and hoping that the place will continue to be undisturbed. As he makes his way back down the stairwell, this time at a far more sedate pace, he thinks back to the name that the man mentioned, Durinson, and realises it’s not just familiar from newspapers. He’s driven for them before, a long time ago. He’s always had a good memory for clients, and Thorin Durinson had nearly gotten him fired. Durinson’s company, Erebor holdings, would have been a huge score for Esgaroth Car & Driving Services, but after a weekend of being one of the rudest and most demanding clients Bard had ever worked with, Thorin Durinson had refused to settle his bill, claiming that the service he’d received is inadequate, and that he’d been pressured into using their company. There’d been talk of lawsuits, and it is only a sudden outbreak of the flu taking down nearly half of Esgaroth’s drivers that had allowed Bard to keep his job.

He wracks his brain for what he remembered of that time. Erebor had a huge office building in the centre of the city, but surely if they’d snatched Thranduil it would be foolish to take him to somewhere so crowded and public.

But they’d also had properties near the docks, and in recent years Bard had known a dozen acquaintances laid off as fewer and fewer companies made use of the docks. The shipyards there were huge, and there were trucks passing in and out of there at all hours, but the few people still employed their worked hard to sustain that status, and so it was unlikely that any of the workers would be keeping a particular eye out for suspicious activities. The most likely people to notice if there is something strange going on the Erebor’s area would be their own security guards, who surely wouldn’t question one of the Durinsons.

He knows his way to the docks. They’re a bit of a distance from Thranduil’s apartment, but they seem like his best shot. Hopefully the drive will clear his head enough that he can work out how to convince the Durinsons not to kill Thranduil.

He sticks closely to the speed limits, this is urgent, at that means the last thing he wants to do is get pulled over. His phone rings from his jacket pocket, buzzing offputtingly against his ribcage. He takes on hand off the wheel to fish it out and glances at the caller I.D – it’s Esgaroth’s main office, Mr Idwal’s main line. He answers tersely, wondering what his boss would need that required speaking to him directly.

“You’ve been reassigned.”

Bard chokes. “What?”

“You’ve been reassigned,” the man repeats, too loud and unnecessarily slow. “Your display yesterday proves you are unsuitable to work with such a high profile client. You are on probation until further notice, and will only be assigned temporary clients who are of little value.”

“Display?” Bard echoes. “We were being shot at.”

He thinks about asking if they’ve considered what Thranduil will think about such a change, but then remembers the strange terms they parted on. “I expect you here as soon as possible, to return the Mercedes and exchange it for a car more suited to your new clientele.” Mr Idwal is still rambling on and Bard realises it doesn’t matter; he’ll be working for somebody else anyway unless he can prevent the Durinsons from killing Thranduil. “We expect the car in pristine condition, if you do not-” Bard hangs up, tossing the phone onto the passenger seat, and thinks, fuck it.

 

*

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=33ykgtd)

*

 

He parks a few streets away from the main gates of the dock. The replacement car isn’t quite as flashy as the Tesla, but it will definitely stick out in a dockyard. The Mercedes isn't as well stocked as the usual but it contains a lug wrench, he lifts it and swings, getting a sense for its heft. It is a shipyard – who would question him carrying tools?

It's actually pretty easy for Bard to infiltrate the docks. He's a working man and it shows, even when he's in a suit rather than the typical jeans and old plaid of the dockworkers.

With a gun he barely knows how to handle in one hand, a lug wrench in the other, Bard supposes he probably presents an image that is more ridiculous that threatening. The Durinsons are apparently a crime with a long history, and they have managed to take down Thranduil, who has been accused of being a professional killer – why on earth would they be intimidated by Bard, who hasn’t been in a proper fight since his early twenties? 

He's relying upon them listening to reason, and based on his previous encounter with Thorin Durinson he knows that it's a feeble hope.

He slips the gun under his belt so that it looks like nothing more than a bizarre fold in his jacket, but he figures the wrench isn't so suspicious looking so he keep it in his hand.

The security guard eyes Bard as he passes through the gate, and waves him over to the booth of ask his business. A glance at the sign mapping the yard reveals a company called Langwell Motors operates out of units 4-9, so he lifts the wrench and smiles wryly at the man and says, "Unit seven, Langwell?" and when the guy frowns he swears and grumbles. "They're supposed to deliver everything to the shop core in drivable condition, but apparent there's something wrong with the tyres. Dunno why they need a mechanic for that, but they said they'd call ahead." He throws in an eye roll, then wondering if that's overdoing it, but no, the guard laughs and waves him through.

The same sign he'd copied Langwell's name off had also informed him that Erebor's space was located at the far end of the property. Units 43-55, more than any other single company, and neighboured only on one side by units 40-43, owned by the Ered Luin group, who Bard was pretty certain had been taken over by Erebor holdings about five years ago. How convenient.

He walks unheeded, a few people nod to him in greeting but he knows he looks like he belongs here, so it isn’t so surprising that people accept his presence. He wonders if they’d say anything even if he were acting suspicious. If the Durinsons are conducting less than legal business here, then the workers are likely oblivious or have, through either threats or bribery, been encouraged not to ask too many questions.

He counts the units as he walks by them. Some are more clearly signed than others are, and he wouldn’t want to enter the wrong one. The first two of Eberbor’s buildings he tries are locked up and silent, but he can hear voices behind the door of the third. It is sealed with a padlock and rope, which seemed sloppy but Bard wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It takes him a few minutes and judicious application of the lug wrench to snap the rope, and the entire time is spent glancing repeated over his shoulder to check that nobody is approaching. The previous day’s shooting might have been aimed at Thranduil, but Bard doubted that the Durinson’s would have given a damn if he’d been killed in the process, therefore it seemed reasonable to assume that they’d have no compunctions about killing him for trespassing on their turf either.

He draws the gun before stepping inside. Being visibly armed may make him more of a target, but he’s pretty sure that the only difference it will make if he’s caught is that between kill and overkill, and he’d rather not be fumbling to get to it if it becomes necessary.

He enters a break room, and he can see the huge double doors that likely lead to the main warehouse, but the conversation is coming for a third door, propped slightly open. Offices, he supposes. He’s surprised nobody heard him enter, and that there’s no security lurking outside the door. But then again, what reason would they have to think that somebody might come here. After all, Bard would likely never have found this place if it weren’t for his chance encounter with Smaug.

Approaches the doorway and hears one of the men addressing Thranduil by name. He’s right. This is where they’re holding him.

He draws in a deep breath, trying to stay as silent as possible as he leans around to get a better look at the room through the narrow gap of the partially opened door. Thranduil is bound to a chair, glaring at the man who looms over him, but, when his gaze flickers past the man and he sees Bard, his eyes widen briefly before he refocuses his attention on his captor. Bard knows he only has seconds to assess the room before somebody else notices his presence and then he’ll have to act fast. There are five men in the room, Thranduil’s dark-haired tormentor, confirmed to be Thorin as the shaven headed man at his side addresses him. There’s also an elderly looking man and two younger, one fair and one dark, gathered around a table across from them. Thranduil’s seat is in the centre of the room and there is a taped over gag stuffed in his mouth. Bruises are already beginning to show on his face and neck and Thranduil’s hair is darkened and matted by blood. For a moment, he feels bile rising in his throat, there is a loaded gun in his hand and he thinks that he could kill everyone in the room, everyone who had caused this harm to come to Thranduil, before feeling an ounce of remorse.

Yet this may still be Thranduil’s fault. Whatever machinations might have triggered it, if Thranduil has killed Thror Durinson – no, Bard shakes the thinks from his mind. It is not for the Durinsons to decide the law, or to enact punishment. He will get Thranduil away from them; everything else can come later.

He tries to think of something clever, of some trick he can use that might balance out the fact that he’s outnumbered by men who he suspects are likely experienced killers, and that they have Thranduil as a potential hostage. He can think of none.

There are six of them and Bard only has five bullets left in the gun after what happened in Thranduil’s apartment, but he’s hoping that they have no way of telling that and praying that they won’t find out as he steps through the door, gun pointed at Thorin Durinson’s head.

Immediately two of the man have guns pointed at him, and he wonders if he will simply be shot on sight, but one of the younger men, fair-haired but with something of Thorin in his face, holds up a hand.

Bard knows he needs to gain control of this situation fast.

“Is the name Smaug familiar to you?” he asks, before any of the Durinson’s or their men can say a thing.

“The dragon,” Thorin hisses, and if Bard had thought the man angry with Thranduil, or with Bard’s aiming a gun at his face, it is nothing compared to pure fury that he radiates now. “Do you work for him? Do you think that giving up your employer will save you? Or do you think to assassinate me on his behalf and wish to gloat.” There’s something wild in Thorin’s eyes, and Bard suspects that one wrong word here will leave him dead.

“I slew him,” Bard says, plainly. If Thorin suspects Bard of being an assassin in that monster’s employ, then perhaps he looks more in control of the situation than he feels - which could be useful. It’s also possible that Thorin is just man. “All of this was his plan, to set you and Thranduil against one another so he’d have access to uranium deposits on land you own.”

“My land…” Thorin mutters darkly to himself, reaffirming Bard’s suspicions that he’s dealing with a madman.”

Although Bard is pretty sure that most of Thorin’s anger is directed at Smaug now, there is still a gun pointed at Thranduil’s head and the situation isn’t sufficiently deescalated for leaving to seem like an option. “Smaug is your enemy, not Thranduil. Let us leave and turn your anger on those who deserve it.”

“He murdered my grandfather,” Thorin growls in reply. There is really nothing Bard can say to that. He’s trying to argue Thranduil’s innocence when he doesn’t even believe it himself. Thranduil is undoubtedly a killer, and Bard isn’t sure how complicit Thranduil was in Smaug’s plans, but the version he’s offering Thorin, in which Thranduil is an innocent pawn, doesn’t much match up to what he knows of that man’s character. But that does not make Thorin’s response okay.

“You’ll gamble everything on the hope that Smaug has so descendants, no allies, no co-conspirators who will continue in his plans? You’ll bend to the wishes of a man who arranged your grandfather’s death and tried to steal from you?”

Thorin seems to waver at this, but he still hasn’t turned his gun away from Thranduil, and Bard finds himself flooded with anger as he steps between them. “Mourn the family you’ve lost but don’t throw away what you still have,” he spits, and feels a sudden surge of empathy for Thorin. It had taken him months to understand that after Ceinwen had passed, and he’s trying to argue Thorin into setting aside all of his grief and anger after hardly any time at all, even when the one he lost was sufficiently elderly that surely he should have been more prepared for the loss. The feeling passes quickly though, after all the man is still pointing a gun at him. “Or do you consider taking Thranduil’s life valuable enough to squander those of your own people.

For a moment he’s drowning in the sickening feeling that he’s about to be shot, but then Thorin lowers his gun. It doesn’t precisely make Bard feel safe, but it feels like opportunity enough to turn to Thranduil and nobody stops him as he steps forward to remove the man’s gag. He thinks he’s pushing his luck when he reaches to loosen the knots around Thranduil’s wrists, but Thorin and his men seem to have become embroiled in a whispered argument, so Bard seizes the chance while he has it, freeing Thranduil from the ropes.

“You are injured,” Thranduil murmurs, reaching out to where blood is splattered across Bard’s once white shirt.

He shakes his head, feeling sick. “No…. it’s… it could be yours or… Smaug. He was in you apartment…” Bard swallows, “I shot him… I killed him.”

Thranduil wraps his hands softly around Bard’s wrists. He hadn’t realised his hands had been shaking until they stopped. “What he would have done…” Bard adds, “He’d have irradiated everything west of the parkway – my children go to school there.”

“I knew of him as a potential target,” Thranduil says softly. Bard takes a steadying breath, focusing on the slow stoke of Thranduil’s thumbs across his pulse. “You have saved me a task.”

He helps Thranduil up, letting the man rest a hand on his shoulder to steady himself.

He’s honestly not sure who instigates it, hadn’t even realised they were standing so close, but theirs lips brush, a soft fleeting touch, that causes a spark, dragging them both into a heated kiss. Bard presses himself against Thranduil, pouring all of his anger and frustration, all of the by-products of his fear, into claiming the other man’s mouth, even as Thranduil reacts with equal ferocity. But Bard tastes the metallic tang of blood, and begins to draws back, realising that he should have been more cautious of Thranduil’s injuries. Thranduil’s grip on Bard’s jacket twists and tightens and Bard hears the sound of a seam tearing open, he ignores it, his suit is already ruined and it hardly matters when Thranduil’s arms are wrapped around him, holding his close enough that he swears he can feel the other man’s heartbeat against his chest. This kiss has arousal sparking within his veins, but the main thing he’s feeling is joy at having Thranduil alive and close to him, a profound relief that he can only attribute to love. Bard gasps and then Thranduil pulls away, but his eyes are dark and intent, and his grip on Bard doesn’t slacken.

“Tell me that this is not merely adrenaline,” Thranduil demands, and Bard nearly chokes on a laugh, even as the heat of the man’s voice courses through him.

“It was never adrenaline,” he confesses and Thranduil mouth is on his once more, in a kiss that’s oddly gentle

One of Thorin’s men clears his throat.

Bard thinks he ought to be scared, but he hands Thranduil his gun and turns so that they are standing beside one another.

Everything is going to be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains acts of violence including murder and contract killing, a secondary character death, mild gore, and implied torture. Various characters attempt to justify these acts.


End file.
